Uggggggh. Crawled out of bed at 9:45 and punched in (figurative) at ten. Immediately put in for a half day’s vacation so I could catch up on a few things left unfinished over this last weekend of NaNoWriMo. Not enough sleep by far, but I did get more than five hours uninterrupted with Darth Vader, so it was the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.
I took a little while to get warmed up but worked steadily on the website thing they asked me to put up. This one was a little interesting because I worked closely with two DOs on the proposal, then they did their thing with it, and we raised the targeted amount (more than a million dollars). My boss wrote the press release, and I posted it on our website. Circle of fundraising life.
This shouldn’t have taken my entire half day of work, but I worked too slowly, and then there were late corrections, one of which took me a lot longer to figure out than it should have. Yeah, my brain is a long way from mossy these days.
I didn’t check out as early as planned because of it, but it was enough time to take care of my laundry night prep, and I had time to make dinner and watch The Bachelorette which continues to be stupid but I can’t take my eyes off the star. She’s beautiful.
I do believe in the possibility of love at first sight. A colleague once expressed his believe in it such that I could see it happening while I doubted I could ever experience it myself. I mean, not love. It’s one reason I think this show and others of its ilk are ridiculous, because even if you could fall in love in this setting, which I doubted, would you want to?
My feelings are evolving on this as I have now watched three episodes. These people are all physically attractive, and most of them are personally attractive too, although competition certainly doesn’t bring out the best in some. As we all know.
Here’s the thing, though. The bachelorette and her wooers get pretty handsy, and there’s some intimate kissing going on, the likes of which I’ve never done before knowing a person for years. Yeah, I know I’m not typical, but I think I’m naive, too. Is this the kind of making out people do on first dates when they’re into each other? It’s pretty steamy to these innocent eyes.
If you put me in this setting, where I exist solely to gain the favor of an incredibly beautiful woman, I think I present as my best self, or at least my best self away from a classroom. Which means I’m present, confident, focused on others, sensitive, and that thing I have where I know the right thing to say at the right time (whose flipside is knowing the most hurtful thing to say at the wrong time as well). This version of me kissing a woman like that in this way has a pretty darned good shot at believing he’s in love, and I don’t know. Maybe believing you’re in love is a step.
My experience believing the ineffable would indicate that you could slide right into true love, although I doubt you could be certain of it. Still, not being certain doesn’t mean it’s not real.
Anyway I can’t wait for this program to be over so this bachelorette can leave and I can be free.
I slept but not well. Kinda dropped off before closing any loops. Left my dinner dishes on my desk, unwashed and just about every light in the house on, so I forced myself up at about midnight to put stuff away and brush my teeth, then of course it took me a while to get back to sleep. I was going to go to the beach Wednesday morning, another reason for my taking that half day off, so I could reset my sleep schedule, but it’s not going to happen now. I’m at the laundry typing this now and I think it would be irresponsible to show up for work on the bad sleep I got.
For breakfast I made a small pot of turkey jook with hapa rice, lots of rosemary, and a little bit of garlic powder. It was yummy, but I didn’t have eggs, and I love to put an egg in my poultry soup. It was filling enough to cover lunch, too, so I skipped that and had a bag of chips for a snack. Dinner was a bowl of pasta with jarred sauce. I made the sauce with garlic flakes, tequila, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes, then topped the dish with extra-sharp white cheddar. It was quite good, although tequila’s not as good as vodka in red sauce.
Got a text from Crush Girl. We talked a little about Wednesday’s surf forecast and whether or not this evening was a good time to try Target. JB texted to talk about some spiritual stuff. Good conversation. Jennifer sent me another photo of some of her recently framed movie art. It’s nice. I questioned whether she had enough wall space for it all. Tiger sent me and those classmates in the Zoom call more info about her MLM.
A few of the NaNo Skypers did chat for a while Tuesday evening, but I stayed out of it. Laundry nights are going to be my no-writing nights this month. I think that’s going to be only a couple of times, though, because I think every other week is going to work well for me, especially during these holidays.
Someone left a Bible here in the laundry. I’m going to flip through it to see if there are interesting notes in margins.
Don’t go through pandemic days in a pandemic haze. Minutes hours and days run together in these times, and if you’re not doing what I’m doing — journaling the meaningless trivialities of daily existence — you can get lost. If you need someone to connect with, please leave a comment and I’ll send you some contact info. Especially if you’re watching The Bachelorette.